An attorney who has represented a dozen clients horribly injured when red plastic gas containers exploded says the Colorado Civil Justice League[1]’s notion that “lawsuit abuse doomed an American icon” is simply untrue.

That’s the title of a speech scheduled to delivered Friday by Rocky Flick[2] of Blitz USA[3], which manufactured the gas containers until filing for bankruptcy. Flick is the keynote speaker at the Civil Justice League’s annual luncheon, which begins at 11:30 a.m. at the Four Season Hotel’s Cottonwood Ballroom. The group will honor lawmakers who demonstrate a “commitment to personal responsibility and consumer freedom.”

Attorney Diane Breneman[4] of Kansas City disputed the statement from CCJL president Mark Hillman[5] that Blitz was driven out of business by “personal injury lawyers who convinced courts and juries” that Blitz was liable when a “handful of ill-advised customers” poured gas on an open flame.

“Over 90 percent of my cases have involved children,” Breneman said.

She said that in order to “save a few pennies,” Blitz USA removed a small-screen like device from the mouths of its containers and other companies then followed suit. The devices prevented explosions.

“The company and the lawyers suing it seek to frame the conflict in stark terms: devious lawyers with spurious claims piling on a valuable manufacturer, or a greedy company hurting consumers by refusing to fix a defective product,” according to a New York Times story[6].

“There are horrific examples of serious burn injuries to children knocking over these gas cans with tricycles, fathers filling up lawnmowers and people just walking by these plastic gas cans when a small spark from static causes it to explode,” trial lawyers association president Michael Ogborn stated.

Hillman, a Burlington farmer who served in the state Senate and as state treasurer, hasn’t changed his opinion that Blitz got the shaft.

“Most people with common sense know that with gasoline the vapor and liquid are flammable,” he said today.

“With most other flammable liquids, the liquid itself is flammable. It defies common sense to claim that literally pouring gas on a fire isn’t inherently dangerous and that the gas can — rather than the person holding the gas can — was at fault for the resulting explosion. It takes a very crafty personal injury lawyer to convince a jury otherwise.”